Monday morning syndrome

For those of you of the horsey set, you know Monday Morning Syndrome as that when a draft horse has the weekend off, goes back to work Monday morning and has muscle spasms. This is caused by going from a high level of activity and calorie intake to a low level of activity without change in the feed. The horse then ties up and can have actual muscle damage.

For those not into horses, now you learned something new!

Humans don't seem to have this issue, I would say we have the opposite. We live nice, sedentary lives with office jobs, then on the weekends we turn into Rambo, Lance Armstrong, Robert Dover, and the staff from 'This Old House' all rolled into one.

This past weekend, my husband and I decided to 'get things done'. This included serious yard work (moving bushes, pruning, digging a flower bed, putting down gravel on a path) a lot of house work (cleaning, organizing, bringing things down from the attic, putting things up in the attic, rearranging furniture and pictures) and at the last minute, a fast ride on the horses in the brisk autumn air.

Today, I can't move without pain. Neck, back, arms, legs, they all hurt. I feel 90 million years old, not the forty-something I really am. I took painkillers last night and this morning. Everything is creaking and popping, I can't turn my head to the left, and I am walking on my toes because my calves are one big knot of pain.

I think it wouldn't have been quite this bad, except for our spur of the moment decision to take our fat, sassy, and snorty horses out for a ride right before dark. They hadn't been ridden in weeks, it was cold (which always fills them with energy) and right at dusk, when all the horse-eating dragons come out. Wrestling with them managed to pull every muscle we have, so now we are walking like stiff zombies from a b-movie.

I say we, because my husband was party to this madness, and was hobbling this morning too. It's the real reason I hate Mondays, not because of work, but because of weekend fallout.

We will probably do it next weekend too.